Theosophy and the Ascended Master
There is a lot of discussion about religion on this site but it all seems to be about mainstream religion, especially Christianity. For many years I have been reading esoteric literature, including the ideas of Rudolph Steiner, Blavatsky and others. These writers speak of higher realms and often ascended masters.
I do not say that I believe these writers absolutely but believe they offer an interesting contrast to mainstream traditions. The most extreme of these was Benjamin Creme, who founded transmission meditation. This wa based on the ideal of levelling down the energies of the ascended master. I took part in some transmission meditation workshops and found it to be the best meditation I had ever done, although some of his ideas seem far out, especially the view that the current Maitreya is living in London. Creme's followers waited patiently for the emergence of Maitreya and Creme died a few years ago in his 90s.
While I am not sure that all esoteric systems can be taken literally, I think they do offer an interesting alternative and I keep an open mind towards the idea of spirit guides and the possibility of ascended Masters, who include Jesus, the Buddha and Saint Germain.
My interest in the esoteric began when I had premonitions which came true and intense hypnagogic dream states and this led me towards Jung who had encounters with spirit guides, especially one called Philemon.
At the present time most of the discussion focuses on mainstream ideas, from the Western tradition, but what about angels, ascended masters and the chakras. I do believe that philosophy needs to embrace new territories for the future rather than remaining locked into debates of previous centuries. Does anyone else apart from me see this an area worth treading and discussing.
I do not say that I believe these writers absolutely but believe they offer an interesting contrast to mainstream traditions. The most extreme of these was Benjamin Creme, who founded transmission meditation. This wa based on the ideal of levelling down the energies of the ascended master. I took part in some transmission meditation workshops and found it to be the best meditation I had ever done, although some of his ideas seem far out, especially the view that the current Maitreya is living in London. Creme's followers waited patiently for the emergence of Maitreya and Creme died a few years ago in his 90s.
While I am not sure that all esoteric systems can be taken literally, I think they do offer an interesting alternative and I keep an open mind towards the idea of spirit guides and the possibility of ascended Masters, who include Jesus, the Buddha and Saint Germain.
My interest in the esoteric began when I had premonitions which came true and intense hypnagogic dream states and this led me towards Jung who had encounters with spirit guides, especially one called Philemon.
At the present time most of the discussion focuses on mainstream ideas, from the Western tradition, but what about angels, ascended masters and the chakras. I do believe that philosophy needs to embrace new territories for the future rather than remaining locked into debates of previous centuries. Does anyone else apart from me see this an area worth treading and discussing.
Comments (61)
clever play of words, like the Sophists and I am concerned with the the question of big questions about reality, and don't want to get caught up in any dogmas of religion or cults.
Well one tradition is that these people of higher consciousness recognise each other straight away. But the rest of us cannot tell the difference between an ascended master and a psychopathic charlatan. But let us assume that they exist, but do not post here. Let us assume that we are not qualified to recognise them, but have some intimation of the possibility of something 'out of reach' yet 'close at hand'.
Do you think we need to do something in the meantime, or just 'wait patiently'? Does studying help?
But I am not a preacher or ego-centred, so wish to initiate dialogue, but so far the responses to my discussion have been very hostile, apart from one which was a bit more optimistic.
I am disappointed that in the responsea I have received so far it seems that the people reading this site today, but my main aim was to open up areas of debate for any like minded people who have an interest in the esoteric traditions of philosophy.
Hmm. I wonder what you found to be hostile here? It all seemed fairly sympathetic to me. I assume you are familiar with J. Krishnamurti, as he was presented by Blavatsky as an ascended master, and world teacher. Of course he famously rejected any leadership role, but spent his life teaching and discussing.
My own studies have touched on Steiner, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll, but have settled on Krishnamurti as the clearest and most consistent voice. But I find it very difficult to discuss my own limited understanding of these things - I don't know if I have anything to contribute apart from what you already seem to see as hostility.
There is nothing wrong with positing your ideas, as long as they are logical. I view science as taking words that we know, and testing them against reality. Philosophy is more like taking the concepts that we have a nebulous understanding of, and using words to describe them in a logical and useful manner.
If you receive hostility from certain people, ignore them. You cannot please everyone in life, and people bring their own baggage and ego to discussions where it does not belong. You will find plenty who wish to engage with you with respect.
I read the writers you mentioned, especially Krishnamurti and his position is interesting as so much expectation was placed on him.
Another of my favourite writers is Colin Wilson. I am interested in peak experiences and mysticism. I do still read philosophy as a discipline thinking on the edge is important.
I've read some Steiner, and was a fan of Owen Barfield for awhile. I have Blavatsky's massive book. I'm very interested in this stuff, and have dipped my toes a little in Kabbalah and Christian Mysticism as well. As to your OP...I sort of agree that philosophy should investigate this territory...but at the same time, maybe not. Maybe Philosophy will always only describe the structure of reality without actually participating.
I think that in one way you may be right in a sense that philosophy may describe structure of reality rather than participating in it. However, there is a danger of philosophy becoming too detached from the world.
On this site subjects which are not 'pure' philosophy are being discussed, such as Donald Trump and clothing, so I don't see why the esoteric philosophies should not be incorporated but obviously if people don't want this to happen it doesn't have to.
I can go back to my corner of Watkins bookstore and leave the big questions to those consider themselves to be real philosophers for the time being. I can just reply to their threads, on what the majority choose to discuss, on their terms.
I see occasionally on this forum discussions that might go on for pages about subjects that are actually practices and not merely ideas. When that is the case first hand knowledge seems to me to be a prerequisite for philosophizing. But I may be in the minority here.
Yeah, those threads exist, although mainly in the political realm, which I have my misgivings about (political threads take up so much space here, but it's essentially just political banter; nothing philosophical). What I was getting at with what you quoted is that philosophy proper seems to "describe" reality, in the way that an owners manual will describe how a car functions. Whereas mysticism, and other esoteric traditions, bringing it back to the OP, at least claim to offer participant knowledge; i.e. they claim to show you how to actually drive the car; not only that, but they seem to promise that once you understand how to drive, you'll understand why driving is so pleasurable.
I agree; that's exactly the point I was making.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Absolutely; go forth! This thread is a nice refresher on the existence of esotericism, but if you feel this way, maybe start a thread with a specific focus. And be prepared with sources and reasons for reasons, and have counter arguments for your arguments in mind already, and etc.
Yes, I agree that my thread was a bit vague. To you and the one other person who sent me a positive message I think that I plan to prepare something a bit more specific to say because what I wrote was a spontaneous one, just like a text. I am not trying to make excuses for myself, or perhaps I am, but I am struggling trying to write on my phone. I do have a laptop but it is a Chrome without a proper Word document and I don't have Wifi where I live.
I am a big fan of notebooks. The philosophers of the past wrote on paper. I think the process of writing on paper is different. The art of writing emails and texts can be too instant, so I will try and put something together on paper in the next couple of days and then hopefully put together a more carefully thought out thread which has a direct question for people to think about.
Yes. After I "lost faith" in my "back to the bible" fundamentalist upbringing, I was initially intrigued with the general concept of Theosophy (god wisdom). But, upon closer examination, I found that underneath the rational veneer was that same old Magic & Mysticism of most tribal, traditional, and shamanistic religions. The proof of the pudding in all those Spiritual notions is to demonstrate some divine miracles or psychic powers over the physical world. But all I found was smoke & mirrors. As for "higher realms and ascended masters", don't tell me fantasy fiction, show me the money.
Nevertheless, I couldn't shake the intuition that there must be something "greater than" the time-bound mundane material world. And I have found a clue to that Holistic notion in Information Theory. From the kernel concept that everything in the world (matter & energy & mind) is a form of logical & causal Information, I have developed a personal worldview. It's a technical thesis, not a faith-based rationale. Therefore, although I am open to un-conventional god-models, I am also skeptical of Incredible Faith and Esoteric/Occult Mysteries. :cool:
Esoteric : intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest. Syn -- abstruse, obscure, arcane, recondite, enigmatic.
PS__some people are impressed by ideas they don't understand, assuming if it's hard to grasp it must be secret wisdom. It could also be secret BS. For me, believing is understanding.
PPS__In answer to Tim Woods question, "to what end?", it's philosophical understanding, not the religious feeling of faith.
I am going to try to write a something more direct but it is good to remain sceptical and I am indeed. But if I ask a new question I might have to be a bit far out rather show too much scepticism in order to provide an area of debate.
My purpose was really to try to widen up conversations and get areas touched by esoteric philosophy rather than remaining in the hands of the few because philosophy needs to go to the core of life and death questions.
I read a lot of Krishnamurti in my youth and his ideas influenced my own in a lot of ways. He certainly was consistent over a long career spanning most of the 20th century. I'm not sure I would call him the clearest though. I see him more like the philosophy professor who answers every question with another question so that the listener is led in to thinking for themselves. That sounds good on the surface, but, um....
Around the same time I started reading Krishnamurti there was a little book called "Be Here Now" which I'm sure you are familiar with. It was a silly little book, almost a comic book. I was a sophomore in college reaching for sophisticated maturity at the time so I dismissed Be Here Now as a meaningless wad of ridiculous fluff. I've come to reverse my original impression about the two writers.
Krishnamurti talked on and on and on for years and years. The fact that the same people tended to show up at his talks over and over again for decades would seem to suggest he wasn't really getting the job done. I now have more appreciation for the advice "Be Here Now" as it's only three simple words which aim to leap over years of conceptual analysis and replace it with direct experience. I find that clearer and more direct than Krishnamurti.
Imagine that you're physically hungry and are offered a choice between a book about apples, or a basket of apples. Krishnamurti is like the book, Be Here Now is the basket of apples. There's nothing wrong with the book, but it's not the most direct path to addressing the hunger.
The weakness of Krishnamurti's approach, and this post too, is that it is made of the medium of thought which is itself the problem we are attempting to solve. Krishnamurti appeals to people like us who already think too much, and he offers us even more thinking, thus we find him appealing. Reading Krishnamurti (and other such philosophers) is a bit like an alcoholic trying to cure his disease with a case of scotch.
Be here now leaps over philosophy. Hungry humans don't want to understand the apple so much as they want to eat it. We analytic types often get confused and think we have to understand the apple before we can eat it, but that's not true. We can just grab the apple and eat it now. Much simpler and more direct. Better philosophy in the end.
So I think we are singing the same song with variations.
I think the thing with questions (as with thought generally) is exactly that answers lead to more questions until you arrive at The Question that can only be answered with your life; that "show me your every-minute zen." question. I don't really read K. any more, because the message is so very simple and all the complications are my own. So now I'll take my own advice and shut the fuck up.
I think Krishnamurti provides a service in attracting we over thinkers to such subjects with all his intelligent insightful words and analysis. That's what I was looking for at the time, and he delivered. He aimed me at good subjects at a time when much simpler books like Be Here Now could not. He served me where I was, and deserves credit for that.
I agree with you that Krishnamurti was a great writer with profound insights after he had to battle against the expectations projected on him as the future spiritual leader. He was sceptical but after his own questioning he did become a leader but without the grandeur which he could have claimed if he had been swept up into the grandiose expectations originally projected upon him.
I think that we need more thinkers who are on a quest for true understanding like him. So many academics are caught up in the air and Grace's of the ego and we need more philosophers who are able to undertake a genuine search for truth rather than those who come from a superficial perspective and like to play around with juggling words to convince others and themselves of their own cleverness.
That was part of the plan altogether it was for krishnamurti to renounce the demigod status that he was supposed to uphold. Think about it if he accepted the position then people would not follow him or believe him because they would think he was just a prideful arrogant Antichrist but a true act of selflessness would be to deny the power and position or make everybody think you did
I have found a problem with exposing esoteric thinking to philosophical scrutiny, because the philosophical process inevitably reduces it to some kind of psychological figment of the human mind. Also that the majority of philosophers seem to have come to the implicit assumption that reality, existence and it's explanations are within the preview of science and scientism. Resulting in any other kind of epistemology being disregarded out of hand as just another figment.
I would happily discuss this further, while putting this philosophical scepticism to one side for a while.
Do you think your interest in these areas has enriched your life at all?
Yes, I think that it in any 'divine plan' for the quest undertaken by Krishnamurti he had to reject the idea of his chosen statu or he would have set himself up a demigod.
Of course I think that the problem for most philosophers would be the notion of a divine plan at all. I suppose that I am slightly at odds with many philosophers because I think there may be some plans going on the universe rather than everything being sheer chance. This is a very contentious area in the philosophy of religion.
A related area being discussed in another current thread of discussion is the idea of a daemon, going back to Socrates and it is connected to the belief that human beings can gain a connection with higher powers directly. In the Old Testament there was a belief that Yahweh communicated with mankind. The tradition of direct experience with
The tradition of belief in direct experience of the divine is apparent in Jung's writings. It is a tradition in philosophy and one interesting piece of writing relevant to this is William James's Varieties of Religious Experiences, which came just prior to the behaviourist thinking that influenced psychology. The most influential thinker of behaviorism was B. F. Skinner and he influenced so many psychologists in favour of the belief that the so called inner world is not real.
Philosophy draws upon psychology so much and is interconnected with debates at the centre of religion.
Of course it is a good thing if philosophers do step back rather than just assume connections with the divine, because this accepted without skepticism is a one of the sources of religious psychosis. Also, concrete acceptance of ideas which people believe come from the divine is one of the problems underlying fundamentalist religious belief.
Ultimately, I think it is important to be able to step back from any perceived experience of the divine and that is the reason why I think philosophy needs to make a contribution to this whole area of thought. The religious believers are often not willing to question their experiences and the psychological are too busy providing evidence based studies , but the philosophers have the critical thinking ability to provide a structure for interpretation.
I am writing you a brief response because I don't want to monopolise the thread and you can choose to continue discussion if you wish.
My own experience of questioning esoteric systems to philosophical examinations can certainly reduce their weaknesses and relationships to the authors who wrote them.
However, I believe that questioning is an essential test of any system of belief. I was brought up in a strict system of Roman Catholic and found esoteric systems, mainly theosophy, just at the time I was having difficulty with Catholicism and Christianity in general. Questioning both systems was a means of seeing what makes sense in any way of seeing reality.
In answer to the question of whether I I found it fulfilling I think that it enabled me to hold onto my own sanity and I might have otherwise become unwell mentally. Nowadays, I enjoy reading esoteric literature but with an open but questioning spirit.
I can't imagine how I would have developed without such an alternative view on the world as presented in our society.
Also, I find it a useful narrative in discussing mysticism, which is devilishly difficult to discuss in forums like this.
I like this direction. If the focus is on experience instead of explanations then belief is no longer needed. Tradition can go too. Once explanations are set aside the question of "experience of what?" is unnecessary baggage which can be tossed overboard.
Philosophers have a habit of introducing lots of unnecessary complications. When we're physically hungry we just eat something, we don't clutter that up with a lot of abstract analysis etc. It seems to me that psychic hunger can be addressed much in the same straightforward manner.
The brain is just another organ of the body which requires regular maintenance.
I wouldn't say that, because duty implies conflict and division. But in this field, if one does not live according to one's understanding, then one hasn't really understood.
I do agree with you that philosophy is esoteric in itself and it does contain many puzzles.
I will continue walking in the mazes of my soapbox opera of a life and maybe you will write your futuristic novel. At some point I want to write a novel, possibly of the steampunk genre.
Perhaps the esoteric matter of philosophy can be expressed better in fiction and a lot of philosophers have written fiction as well as non fiction.
That's not how I was using the word duty, perhaps I should have said ought to.
Anyway, do you cross the road to help an old lady struggling with her shopping?
My point is that there are a large number of people who have the (shall I say) wisdom to know how humanity should move forward in a constructive way. Meanwhile humanity is going to hell in a hand cart under the direction, of despots, clowns and idiots. Should these wise folk lift a finger, or just sit there and descend into hell with the rest of them?
Descend into hell, obviously. One has to relate to people where they are, not where one wishes them to be. Every ascended master agrees with this, from Lao Tzu to Jesus.
I would take issue with your conclusion. On the assumption that these ascended masters are really ascended, which is implied in your comment (unless you are engaging in parody, which is fine with me). Then, one is also accepting a cosmogeny of evolving souls etc etc. I know that the Eastern prophets come across as indifferent to the plight of the ecosystem and by implication the race of humanity in favour of personal enlightenment. I would suggest that this is a naive presumption. Also that Jesus did act in the world and ask people to reform society and by implication to intervene in the management of humanity. Jesus is asking us to lift a finger, to cross the road to help that old lady.
Yes,I would agree that Jesus and other masters, even if the idea of ascension is a myth, would certainly wish to help others as compassion was a central message of these teachings.
Yes, it is an unpopular message, and always has been.
[quote= Matthew16:24]Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.[/quote]
[quote=Tao Te Ching 48]In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.
Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.
The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
It cannot be ruled by interfering.[/quote]
[quote= Krishnamurti]Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. [/quote]
Everyone wants to go up, and no one wants to go down.
Thanks for posting this, a fun trip down memory lane for me. Since reading his words so many times so long ago, I've come to this...
Krishnamurti says, "Man can not come to it this way or that, he has to find it through observation etc".
Krishnamurti is implying that there is some "it" we can have if we go about things the right way. Krishnamurti is offering yet another becoming trip. If we do this, we can get that. And the "it" that we could supposedly get it is clouded in glamorous mystery, making it even more appealing, because now we can read whatever we want in to "it".
Our interest in such becoming trips is a response to a psychic hunger. We feel empty, and so seek to fill the emptiness with something, and glamorous becoming trips are an appealing menu item.
A key understanding for me is that this hunger doesn't arise in the content of thought, and so it can't be solved through philosophy.
The hunger instead arises from the medium of thought itself. Thought conceptually divides everything it touches, and so whatever our philosophy might be thought creates up and down, good and bad, inferior and superior, right and wrong, the past and the future etc, and the dance between all these dualities generates conflict, and the feeling of emptiness.
We try to think our way out of the emptiness, but that just adds more fuel on the fire. We convert from this philosophy to that to something else in the hopes of finding the right collection of concepts which will deliver us from the emptiness, but every philosophy we find is made of thought just like all the others so the emptiness and need for a becoming trip is never resolved.
If it's true that the hunger we feel arises from the medium of thought itself, that is very good news, as that suggests simple practical solutions which are readily available to just about anybody.
But the solutions to psychic hunger aren't perfect or permanent. When we're physically hungry we eat something. And then we have to eat again in a few hours. This goes on our entire life, the need to eat never ends. And so addressing physical hunger, and psychic hunger, isn't a glamorous business but instead just routine maintenance of a bodily function.
Because the readily available solution isn't glamorous, philosophers will likely lose all interest and continue on their becoming trips, to where they already are.
That is literally the question I asked myself upon entering this website.
But what you imply is the message is not infact the message. You are confusing the teaching that in order to progress towards personal enlightenmet one must withdraw from the world and find the answer/route internally. With the idea that these ascended prophets have a disregard, or are indifferent to the plight of humanity as a whole. The later does not follow from the former.
When Jesus states that in order to go with him, one should deny himself, he is referring to the day to day concerns of that individual within the society at large and his internal narrative and concerns. This is what he is asking the disciple to deny, to leave behind. In favour of the cross of redemption. The cross is a complex symbol to unravel, but as it is used here, it is referred to as the burden of the acceptance of the human condition and the suffering entailed in the relinquishing of that by a human, in real time, within a real cultural setting and all that that entails (by implication, that society would inevitably crucify, or perform some equivalent act, on such a person).
But if humanity is left to go down, the majority will be going down. It seems inefficient to me, when just one person lifting a finger could reverse this.
Yes, compassion for all beings. Bhuddists strive not to harm any other being, indeed, to help, where they can. In Hinduism, each person seeks to teach and/or spread compassion and wisdom. In Christianity, the redemption, or saving of humanity is more explicit. This implies the helping, the guidance of our fellow man. To bring forth heaven on Earth.
What did I say about withdrawing from the world? I missed it.
Look, if you want to feed the world, or cure a disease or organise a society, that is a practical matter, an externality, and one can operate externally with the intellect, mechanically. You don't need an ascended master to grow corn, you need a combine harvester.
What you need an ascended master for is not to upgrade the combine, but to upgrade the driver.
What prevents it from happening is greed, and a terrible fear that someone will get something from me for nothing. It's a psychological problem.
It is implicit in the instruction given in the quotes from phrophets you have provided.
I am not referring to removing oneself physically from the world. But, intellectually and psychologically. A process of introversion.
Yes, I agree. Well, are you going to lift a finger, or shall I?
I jest, but seriously, who is going to provide this redistribution in a timely manner? You see, the fortunes of the human race, are a real time event. They are happening here and now at speed. Even if it is just a logistical problem, if the course of human history is to be steered in a constructive direction, it has to be done now in the moment. If there are ascended masters, prophets out there, now, in this moment. Would they just turn a blind eye to our fate,? or would they take an interest, of some kind?
Is the plight of humanity of any importance to these prophets? Or is it an irrelevance, because it is a natural process, or something? These are interesting questions.
I do agree that the basic needs of all are a real time event. I think we are living in one of the most extraordinary times in history. I am sure that there have been pandemics before but the current one is a global one and would probably not have spread almost everywhere if travel was not international as it is today. As we are at such a strange point in time that I have been puzzled about how little link is being made between the present Covid_19 crisis and the eternal philosophical questions.
With regard to Masters we definitely need some prophets to guide us rather than just leave all the decisions to be made by the leaders. Scientists and health professionals are involved in discussions and seem to be regarded as the experts but perhaps philosophers have important ideas too.
On a more speculative level, in the New Age circles there has been an idea that we are progressing from the age of Pisces to Aquarius. This would involve major changes in consciousness over a long transitional period of time, starting with the changes in the 1960s. However, there was a belief that we were moving to ascension consciousness, in which large numbers of people would wake up to greater levels of consciousness. This came with an expectation of some mass catastrophic historical event. 1999 passed without the computers all collapsing, 2012 passed but perhaps the real apocalypse year, which people were no longer expecting, is 2020 and will it lead to major shifts multidimensional awareness?
Of course it is of importance. The question is what can one do about it. Humanity has only one problem and that is humanity. Lift humanity's finger to solve the problem of humanity? It turns out that the problem of starvation cannot be solved by producing more because people are greedy and prefer to kill themselves with obesity rather than share their food. Let's both lift our fingers and wag them in admonishment! That'll work. :down:
If it was an external problem, a great leader would solve it, and we wouldn't have to change, but it is an internal problem and a great leader can only make it worse.
I don't think you can conclude this. The main problem, at the moment is not things like feeding the poor etc. But our systems of political control and the quality of the people in those roles are more of a problem. Anyway, things don't have to be this way and people might initiate change in a more constructive direction, so if the right person gets into the right position they can make considerable changes in the fate of humanity.
I am leading towards the idea of esoteric thinking, which is engendered in the Theosophical movement. The questioning of what might be going on behind the scenes.
I suggest you type in "problem philosophy" and "paradox" in Google's search box and you'll probably end up with a list that'll keep you busy in the universe's esoteric department for the rest of your life which I hope is going to be blissful and long.
Well if you are not hungry, then hunger is not a problem for you. But it is quite a big problem for a lot of people. But the people in leadership roles is a reflection of the nature of humanity. No one can lead without having followers.
Everyone agrees about one thing - "it's not my fault". Unfortunately everyone is wrong about that.
I don't see how anything you are saying is addressing the issue I am raising. Other than trying to say that it is pointless to even try, perhaps.
Its like we're on a race to the bottom.
Personally I took it all with a pinch of skepticism, which I would do with any ideology, as I am only interested in collecting ideas and have mystical approach to the esoteric side, or issues.
As an overview I see that that movement along with other movements, such as the rapid developments in social media and the adoption and development of virtual living in gaming etc as expressions of some kind of consciousness expansion which we are going through at the moment. Unfortunately, it is coinciding with a time of global turmoil in which the integrity of the civilisation we have built up is at risk and the spectre of natures cure of a pandemic has arisen.
Would that I could be a fly on the wall with one of those ascended masters right now. It would be an eye opener, I'm sure.
I had a DNA activation (23 strands, as junk DNA is meant to contain hidden untapped potential) about 10 years ago and my own life became far more chaotic shortly afterwards, but that is my mythic truth. I still read all sorts of way out books.
But obviously the current situation with the pandemic and all the turbulence and turmoil created looms in front of us daily.There are no easy answers but we will have to wait and see what this brings for transformation of consciousness. Apart from that we have all the climate change and ecological concerns remain.
Generally agree with your sentiments. Internal problem, expressing itself externally.
To be a quibbler, there is at least some possibility that some great leader of science might uncover some mechanical solution of sorts to the internal problem. A drug? Gene editing? I have no idea.
The one thing we know for sure from thousands of years of experience is that sitting with the guru under the pear tree isn't a sufficiently scalable solution.
Yes, I don't disagree with your thoughts, or Unenlightened's thoughts on the intractable nature of the problems humanity is dealing with right now. Or how mysticism, spirituality, or religious ideologies are unsuitable means to run the world. What I'm getting at is that people who have reached some level of peace and wisdom in themselves (which I expect is a fair few), would be able to steer the course of humanity through the coming difficult period reasonably successfully. Were they to be in positions of power. It is not inevitable that we are going to have a collapse of civilisation during the next few decades, but the way we are going, it is looking that way and the big problems we are going to have to deal with have barely begun, as yet.
As to the root of the problem, it is not in over population and starvation as Unenlightened suggested. Although that is something which will need to be managed. It is in our systems of government and the way that developments in society and the media has either corrupted, or hollowed out the institutions. To the extent that only despots, fools and clowns are finding their way into positions of power.
This either has to be corrected somehow, or things are only going to get worse. And I'm sure I don't need to remind you how easily humans turn to conflict and war.
Quoting Hippyhead
One of you externalises the problem, and the other complains that they cannot externalise the solution. No wonder you agree. You are the problem, and only you can be the solution. I'm not going to solve it for you anyway, I'm unenlightened.
Oh?
[quote=Bob Dylan]I been double-crossed now
For the very last time and now I'm finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast
On the borderline which separated you from me
You'll never know the hurt I suffered
Nor the pain I rise above
And I'll never know the same about you
Your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry
Idiot wind
Blowing through the buttons of our coats
Blowing through the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind
Blowing through the dust upon our shelves
We're idiots, babe
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.[/quote]
- Bob Dylan.
So it's a race to the bottom then. Krishnamurti would be turning in his grave.
This is a key part of the message in Plato's Republic. An individual will rise above the cave-dwellers, to see the light, which is the reality behind the illusory world that we all live in. The live-in world is just a reflection of reality. The key point is that the true philosopher will go back down to the cave-dwellers, descend into that hellish world in which they live, to teach them the truth. That is the key aspect of "the philosopher", the sacrificing of oneself for the purpose of enlightening the others. That is not a pleasant task, as the others do not like the truth about their "reality" to be revealed. See what happened to people like Socrates, and Jesus.
Absolutely, perhaps we can reach and try to touch the shadows in Plato's cave. But of course we may have to descend to the underworld in this quest.
On a different level, but interconnected one, Aldous Huxley spoke about the quest for The Doors of Perception. This involved psychedelic substances. Many sought reality in this way. Jim Morrison tried to Break On Through to the Other Side, but ended up dying prematurely. Others have also ended up in tragic ends but this has always been the risks of the downside of the quest to go up, the shamanic path.